OSPREY IN SUSSEX 45 



weald would appear to offer many spots favour- 

 able to its nidification, and were it not for the 

 unceasing warfare carried on against all the tribe, 

 I might have had the pleasure of recording here 

 at least one instance of its sojourning with us 

 during the breeding-season: but no sooner does 

 an osprey make his appearance in such a situa- 

 tion, soaring aloft in graceful and repeated circles, 

 dashing into the deep, or suddenly arresting his 

 downward career, and hovering over the surface, 

 than he becomes the object of general persecu- 

 tion ; the proprietor of pike is alarmed, issues his 

 merciless edict for his death or expulsion, guns 

 and traps are put into immediate requisition, and 

 the keeper, in his undiscriminating hatred of 

 everything in the shape of a hawk, vies with the 

 guardian of the waters in his efforts to destroy 

 the beautiful strang^er. 



During the months of May and June, 1843, an 

 osprey was observed to haunt the large ponds 

 near Bolney. After securing a fish, he used to 

 retire to the stump of an old tree on the more 

 exposed bank to devour it, and about the close of 

 evening was in the habit of flying off towards 

 the north-west, sometimes carrying away a prize 

 in his talons, if his sport had been unusually suc- 

 cessful, as if he dreaded being disturbed at his 

 repast during the dangerous hours of twilight. 



